Rise of the Champions - Chapter Thirty
Author: Milady Dragon
Steve Teleported back to Triskelia Castle, still in shock at what he'd had to witness.
He'd certainly expected it to be bad. But what had actually occurred…he never wanted to see anything like that again.
The Artifact he'd been given deposited him back into the Baron's sitting room, glad it was empty at the moment. He really didn't want to deal with anyone right then; he just wanted to get back to his own rooms, and have a quiet breakdown all on his own.
He didn't have that sort of luck, because Sam was waiting for him.
Which he should have expected, because Sam was just that sort of friend. He would have known that Steve would be upset, and want to help as much as he could. It certainly helped that he'd been trained for that sort of thing, even though he wasn't there as Dr. Wilson…it was as Sam, Steve's friend.
The moment Steve set foot into his sitting room, Sam was by his side, helping him with the armor he'd worn to the curse-breaking. He hadn't had time to change after the Baronial Court, just able to remove his sword from his belt, so it felt good to have someone aid in its removal. Sam's deft fingers pulled at buckles and ties, eventually getting it all hung up on the rack that had been made for that purpose; the shield he'd carried for so long as the Paladin of the Western Lands set beside it, in sight but not used any longer, now that he'd given up that title and had just become Sir Steve Rogers, Knights' Commander of Barony Triskelia. Then he steered Steve toward the couch, pushing him down onto the cushions then offering him a glass of…it looked like Elf spirits, which Steve seriously needed.
The strong drink burned going down, and he savored it. "Thanks," he said, holding the glass out for more once he was finished.
Sam poured. "Take it easy," he cautioned. "That stuff is powerful."
"I'm aware." He'd had it back during the war, and it had been one of the few alcohols that had managed to get him drunk. Steve had a very strong tolerance to most spirits, so to actually be affected like that had been a treat. Gabe had teased him mercilessly about the it next day, not caring one jot about how much Steve's head had been banging at the time. Gabe was happily sadistic like that. It was one of the reasons he liked the Elf so much.
He nursed this one, just to make Sam happy.
His friend waited patiently, which was a good thing because Steve really needed to get a handle on his thoughts. He started to talk and then stopped a couple of times, his tongue tripping over itself in trying to find the right words, then finally settled on stating the obvious. "I never want to see anything like that again."
Sam didn't say anything. Which just meant Steve needed to fill the silence.
"Bucky and I have been friends since we were kids." He had no idea why he was starting with that, because Sam had to know at least a little of their history, if just from their own conversations. "We grew up in a little place called Brook's Glen, outside of New Andrade. I was a sickly boy. When I was a baby, there was some serious doubt I'd survive to learn to walk. But I did, and I got bullied a lot because I was a lot smaller than most boys my age, which meant I had to stand up for myself and I really hated bullies. So when I was older, I'd start fights with them, just because I was an idiot who didn't like seeing anyone treated the way I was."
Sam snorted. "I bet that didn't get you anywhere."
Steve smirked. "Not so much, no. However, it did get me my best friend, which meant it turned out alright in the end."
He went on to tell the story of how Bucky had found him, a scrawny ten-year-old, trying to punch the lights out of three larger boys just because they'd been pushing around a little neighbor girl, and getting his own lights punched out. Bucky had waded in and had taken out two of them on his own, leaving one for Steve…
"And I kicked him in the nuts."
That had Sam chortling. "That should teach them not to pick on someone smaller than them."
"They certainly didn't want it to get around that a scrawny punk like me had taken out one of them," Steve laughed.
He filled more time telling Sam all sorts of stories about Bucky and their time together, making his new friend laugh at their antics. It felt wonderful to recall those times together; they weren't always good, but they'd had each other, and that had been enough.
He was aware that he was letting more of his private emotions to show, but this was Sam, who would keep things in confidence. Besides, it appeared as if Daisy had already guessed, judging from her 'Uncle' comment. Steve had to wonder just who else had figured it out, and he assumed Sam already had, if only because he didn't seem all that surprised.
"You and Bucky were close," Sam observed, "so it's no wonder you were distressed by what happened today. Hells, you've only just been able to process being in a different time than what you were used to, and then to discover the man you'd thought you'd lost had been cursed and tortured by Hydra, who you'd been fighting back in your own time."
Steve sobered. "Yeah. I've been so desperate to help Buck that I didn't realize until today that it was something I couldn't do myself, that I had to rely on others to do what I wasn't able to."
That had been the main lesson he'd learned today: that he was very ill equipped to handle what had been done to Bucky. That he had to leave it to others to do what he wanted to be able to do himself. He wasn't a Wizard, so he couldn't remove the curses; and he doubted that, even if he had been one, that he'd have succeeded at what had been a tough job for two of the most powerful Wizards in the world. Phil had looked positively ashen when he'd gotten done pulling the Void out of Bucky, although if he'd understood correctly it hadn't been the same sort that had been removed from Steve himself. It had been sick, Phil had claimed, and Steve remembered hearing the story about the Void Point that Hydra had messed with. The same Void Point that Phil had brought Steve out of, and had closed behind them.
He told Sam about it, what he'd overheard, and what he'd had to do to be in the same room during the procedure. Sam, being the empathetic person that he was, sat and listened, resting a hand on Steve's shoulder in companionship and refilling the glass that he'd emptied once again during his story time about Bucky.
He explained about the lengths that both Phil and Ianto had gone to in order to clear the curses. He couldn't help but feel both gratitude and awe for everything, but of them all it had been Grand Master Phil Coulson who had impressed him the most. His willingness to take the tainted Void into himself, so that Ianto could get the curses removed, which had led to the complete removal of the magical arm that Hydra had forced upon his friend.
Oh, he wasn't discounting what Ianto had had to do, but it had been Phil who had taken the greater risk. While he didn't know a thing about magic, he could tell that Phil had put himself on the line in order to save Bucky.
If that wasn't enough to win Steve's undying loyalty, nothing would be.
Of course, he knew that Phil was as near as immortal as a person could get, but what exactly would it cost him to draw all that sick Void into his own body? How would it affect the Void part of himself that was his magic? Ianto had made it sound very serious indeed, and he doubted the Cardinal Grand Master was prone to exaggeration.
"Sounds like you have a lot of good people in yours and Bucky's corner," Sam said, once Steve was finished.
"Yeah, I think I do." Steve couldn't believe it sometimes. Yes, he was so far from his own time that it was only talked about in history books – and a lot of those books had got parts of it wrong – but he felt himself lucky in falling in with some of the best people he'd ever met. It could have ended so much worse than it had, because at least he was still alive and relatively unscathed, where Bucky… "I know they'll do their best. They can't guarantee Bucky will ever get his memories back, but I have to hope he does. And, if not," he shrugged, "I'll meet him all over again and make new ones. But I have to believe there's something there, and someday we'll be friends again."
"I will be the first person to tell you not to lose that hope, Steve. I know you won't give up on him, but don't ever think you won't get him back in some capacity."
"I won't." It was good to hear Sam say that. It reinforced how he was feeling about the entire situation.
"I have a question, though."
"Sure."
"If you were such a sickly child, how did you grow into this?" He waved a hand toward Steve now.
He had to laugh at that. "Sheer stubbornness. And the fact that Bucky decided that he didn't really want me to die and so took it upon himself to help me get healthy." Steve smiled fondly. "He once told me, that if I was so determined to beat up bullies, then at least I could learn to do it the right way. For years, he taught me how to fight but, more importantly, how to defend myself. A sudden growth spurt when I turned sixteen didn't hurt. He also did all sorts of research in herbal remedies and at one point even talked about trying to find some sort of healing Artifact out there…which never happened, but it just proved how much he cared about me."
"And then you were scouted by Howard Stark to be the Paladin."
"Yeah. I was never really supposed to be more than a symbol. See, even though I was now healthy enough to fight, the recruiters that came through our village wouldn't accept me, because of my past. They just didn't want to take the risk of me dropping dead on the battlefield from some sort of childhood defect that hadn't been caught. So, I was stuck at home, even though I wanted to follow Bucky into the army."
It still rankled, that no one had given him a chance. That everyone believed he would always be a product of his past. That everything that Bucky had done to get him healthy and strong hadn't meant a damn thing to any of them. To be truthful, Steve had been more insulted for Buck than he had for himself, simply due to the fact that Bucky had seen something in that punk-ass kid that was worth helping, and it felt like they were discounting his friend's ability to fix what had been wrong.
Bucky had worked just as hard as Steve had. It rankled that no one had been able to see that.
"And then, notice went out that Howard Stark was looking for someone to become a rallying point for the military. The war wasn't going so well, and he'd come up with the brilliant idea of having a symbol people could follow. I figured it was my chance to do some good, so I went to the audition."
"Wait," Sam exclaimed, "there was an audition? That's not what the history books claim."
"I've found that the history books often have stuff wrong in them." Steve had done a bit of reading in the near-month he'd been out of the Void, and some of what he'd found had been absolutely hilarious. He could understand why Jack always laughed when someone brought up the legends of the Deathless, because they were usually just as outrageous as the stories told about Steve's own 'recruitment'. "There wasn't any magic involved; I don't get why that's even part of the history, since magic was practically non-existent back then. Howard didn't use any sort of Artifact to find me. Nor was there any sort of spell or potion that made me like this." He waved his own hand down his chest.
Sam was laughing. "I really should have asked Gabe for more details."
Steve grinned. "To be fair, I'm not sure even Gabe knows the entire story." He settled back, knowing he was going to enjoy this. "There were about a hundred men and women who showed up for that damned audition. That's how I met Peg, you know…Captain Margaret Carter. First woman I ever fell for, but she was strong as tempered steel and just as sharp. No one ever survived giving her shit." He had really fond memories of Peggy; he would have been happy to marry her, he just hadn't loved her in quite the same way as he had Bucky. However, Bucky had never shown any interest, and Steve had been too much of a coward to ruin their friendship by confessing his true feelings.
"Anyway," he continued, "Howard and the rest of this committee, they'd formed had certain ideas about what a Paladin should be. Peggy, though…she had it right. She wanted me in the position almost from the moment I met her. I have to wonder now if she might have had some sort of magic, or instinct, because she just looked at me and knew I was Paladin material."
"Baron Nick's Steward, Sharon, is a distant relation, isn't she?"
Steve nodded. "I was really glad to know that Peggy moved on with her life after I vanished." He didn't add that Sharon, as she didn't resemble Peggy all that much, really didn't do anything to bring all those memories back. After all, three hundred years was a long time to breed any sort of 'Peggy-ness" out of the family line. Yes, Sharon was tough and organized, and could apparently kick all sorts of ass, but beyond that there was no resemblance at all.
"I take it Peggy's opinion won out."
"Well, not even Howard Stark could tell her no when she put her foot down. You know, I really wasn't all that surprised that Howard's family had become Barons. They weren't back then, but Howard just had this…attitude. I can't really describe it, only to say he would have made a lousy Baron even if the aura of power was there." He was so glad that Tony really wasn't all that much like Steve's Howard; as much as he'd liked the man, Howard had been a bastard who hadn't cared for much beyond his own personal agenda.
Tony was directly opposite of that. He cared for his people, and was always trying to make life better for them and for others. Steve was impressed by him; Pepper had once told him that Tony hadn't always been that way, but any person who could grow into that sort had had that greatness in them from the beginning. It had just taken being kidnapped to bring it out.
"When I was proclaimed Paladin of the Western Lands – I thought that was pretentious as hells – I really thought I'd get to see some action. That I could get out on the front lines, to maybe even find Bucky…but no, that wasn't the case. Instead, I was paraded around as a recruitment tool, which drove me insane half the time." He remembered seeing one of those old posters in Phil's study, and it had brought back a tiny flush of embarrassment that he'd been a part of all that. They really had needed someone like him to bring in people to fight, but it didn't make Steve feel any less self-conscious about it.
"But you eventually ended up on the front lines anyway…with Bucky and the Howling Commandos."
"I did." Steve smiled fondly. "They were a great team. They had no problem accepting me into their ranks, even made me their leader. Not sure I deserved that, but I did the best I could." He finished his glass of liquor, waving Sam off when he offered a refill. "I've had enough for now."
"Feeling better?"
Steve considered. "Yeah. I think I do." He still felt guilt about not trying to find Buck after his fall, but he thought he could be excused for believing his friend had died. Still, if he'd searched, he may have found Bucky before Hydra and the Skull had… "I think I need something to eat, though. Care to accompany me down to the kitchens to see what they might have lying around?"
"That sounds like a plan."
Together, they stood, Steve holding the door open for his newest friend and Sam giving him a playful slap on the upper arm for the courtesy. Honestly, people could be so rude in this century, forms of politeness Steve had grown up with now lost, replaced by other forms. He was still navigating his way around, and there were times when he believed he'd never fully get the hang of things. Holding the door for someone was just one more thing that just wasn't done anymore. At least, for men doing it for other men. Steve had seen it done for women, and there were times when he could see the woman being a bit insulted by it but accepting anyway.
Yes, there were things he was never going to understand.
He just had to accept that fact.
That still wouldn't stop him from doing it, though. Some things were just too ingrained in him to ever be completely changed, even if they were looked down upon now.
People would just have to get used to his old-fashioned manners, as Baron Nick had claimed at one point.
Steve could get behind that sentiment.
